THE MASSIVE BLACK DOG WAITED IN A CHICAGO ALLEY FOR A DEAD CRIME BOSS — A SINGLE MOTHER FED IT, NEVER KNOWING THE MAN WAS STILL ALIVE AND COMING HOME

Chapter 4

On the night the fever finally broke, Logan Hail opened his eyes and didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

The ceiling above him was stained with water marks that looked like maps of countries he had never visited. The bed beneath him was iron and sagging, the mattress thin enough that he could feel every spring pressing into his back. The air smelled of antiseptic and old blood and something else — something metallic and cold, like the river that had nearly swallowed him.

He tried to move, and fire tore through his side.

The memory came back in fragments. Headlights cutting through the fog at Calumet Harbor. The crack of gunfire, too many shots to count. The shock of cold water closing over his head, the current pulling him under, the weight of his coat dragging him down. A hand grabbing his collar in the darkness. A voice saying hold on, you son of a bitch, hold on.

He didn’t know how many days had passed. The old doctor who had pulled him from the river and stitched his ruined body back together was a man who had lost his license years ago, a man who lived in the cracks of the city and specialized in keeping secrets. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t offer sympathy. He just changed bandages, forced liquids down Logan’s throat, and disappeared into the back room of the abandoned auto repair shop where he had set up his makeshift clinic.

Logan lay in the dark and let the rage build.

The ambush at Calumet hadn’t been random. It had been surgical — timed to the minute, positioned to cut off every escape route, designed to leave no survivors. An outside enemy couldn’t have known where he would be, what route he would take, how many men he would bring. Only someone inside his inner circle could have built a trap that perfect. Only someone he had trusted with his life could have sold him out so completely.

He ran through the faces in his mind. Tobias Grant, his right hand for seven years, the man who knew his schedule down to the minute. Rosalind Hail, his aunt, the woman who had raised him after his parents died, who had taught him everything he knew about the underworld. He had pushed her aside in recent years, frozen her out of major decisions, run the empire his own way. Was that enough to make her want him dead?

He didn’t know. And the not-knowing was worse than the bullet wounds.

But there was another face that kept appearing in his fever dreams. Not the face of the traitor. Not the face of the enemy. It was the face of a dog.

Brutus.

The name came back to him with a force that made his chest ache. He had named the animal after a traitor — a bitter joke, a reminder that loyalty was a lie and betrayal was the only truth. But the dog had turned that name into something else entirely. Brutus had never betrayed him. Brutus had never looked at him with fear or greed or calculation. Brutus had simply loved him, with the kind of simple, unwavering devotion that Logan had spent his whole life believing didn’t exist.

He didn’t know if the dog was still alive. The mansion had been attacked the same night he was ambushed. His men had scattered. The dog could have been killed, could have been captured, could have been left to starve in the chaos.

The thought of Brutus alone, waiting, not understanding why his man hadn’t come home — that thought hurt more than any wound.

Logan closed his eyes and let the fever pull him back down. But before he lost consciousness, he made a promise to himself. If he survived this, if he could stand again, he would find the dog. He would find the traitor. And he would make sure that the only creature in the world who had ever loved him without conditions would never have to wait again.

It took him twelve more days to stand.